


Them, falling

by wibblyR



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: M/M, Post-Season/Series 03 Finale, well between the second-to-last and last scenes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-13
Updated: 2015-10-13
Packaged: 2018-04-26 05:59:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4992955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wibblyR/pseuds/wibblyR
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How they fell, and survived, and fell again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Them, falling

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this, my first hannibal fic, just to spite Bryan "They're in love but it's not gay because their lips don't touch" Fuller. Fuck you, Bryan.

It _was_ beautiful. He had known it was true as soon as the word had left his lips.

And he had known, as he had rested his head on Hannibal’s chest – and just beneath, his fast, almost human heartbeat –, the stench of blood like a wave rolling over them, not at all like the crash that Will had expected: this was it; this was them.

And it was the most dangerous thing Will had ever witnessed. His morality, still there against all odds, thrashed like a dying fish and made a spur-of-the-moment decision. Like it was out of his body, and looked on the scene, and decided the world should be rid of them both. It gently raised Will’s arms around Hannibal’s neck. It gently gave a push.

Will didn’t think it was a bad decision. It came from him, after all. A part of him he was fond of. He was glad it hadn’t left him. But he had not expected Hannibal to yield to him, his body open under him. Will closed his eyes and accepted the heat of him while the wind whipped around them.

He half-hoped they would break their bones on the rock, but he only felt a scrape on Hannibal’s back through him. Hannibal made no sound. Will couldn’t tell if he was conscious.

The clarity of the fall made way for the blur of drowning. The impact was messy – their tangled bodies dislocated from each other – and Will felt like he had hit concrete. It knocked him out instantly.

 

-

 

Will opened his eyes. Exhaled. Of course he was alive. There was only one person in the world who could decide if he lived or died, and it wasn’t himself.

He looked for that person. Hannibal wasn’t in his field of vision but there was no doubt he was alive, somewhere. Will dared not move. His wounds, though now stitched, burned diffusely. His mouth was dry and tasted like salt. His eyes stung. He was both shivering and sweating profusely under his quilt.

He closed his eyes and fell asleep again. Dreamed of drowning again. Dreamed that he succeeded.

 

-

 

There was a weight on the side of the bed.

“Will.”

The way that voice said his name. Like it could never tire of it. It always hurt him.

“Will.”

Will looked at Hannibal. He hadn’t looked at him since he had admitted the beauty of their murder. He remembered now. The toss of the waves. The water in his lungs. Being dragged. Gasping for breath. Salt and blood. Hannibal holding him as he rested against a jut of the rocks, just before diving again.

Hannibal looked composed, although tired. He wore a sweater and his hair was not combed back. Will looked down at his side. Had he handled his bullet wound alone? The point of entry was in his back. But knowing Hannibal, Will would not be surprised he had managed.

“You-”, he started.

Hannibal, who had waited for him to fully wake up and take it all in, interrupted him.

“No time. I fear this is all the rest you’ll get.”

The thing was, Will had not planned for survival. He had no idea what to do, what to think. Was this a new life?

While he pushed the answer to the back of his skull, Will followed Hannibal’s lead.

He passed his left hand over his face – skin clammy but cool, stitches biting his fingertips – and blinked the sleep out of his eyes. He was in his underwear under the covers, and clothes were laid out over them. He knew better than to ask where they came from.

They were in a hotel room. Hannibal went into what must be the bathroom to let Will dress but at that point, Will would not have cared. They had watched each other bleed, made each other bleed. Touched each other’s wounds. Nakedness had lost its intimacy along the way.

Will remembered that night – how long ago? – when Hannibal’s eyes had dripped raw desire, just for one word in Will’s mouth. _Beautiful_. Will had thought he was going to kiss him. Had wanted him to.

He managed to slip into the pair of pants, but moving his right arm still brought a radiating pain. The wound just above his breast had bit into the flesh of his shoulder.

There was an aftertaste of blood to Hannibal’s name when he called it out. Hannibal reappeared, and Will noticed how more heavy-lidded than usual his eyes were. He wondered if Hannibal had slept. And if so, if he’d slept beside him. He wasn’t seeing another bed.

“I can’t dress myself”, Will said, or mumbled.

“You have to articulate”, Hannibal said as he picked up the shirt, “so the wound heals correctly.”

He grazed Will’s stitched cheek as he spoke, tender but detached, as if assessing his handiwork. Then he tilted his head and Will turned his back on him and kept his body compliant while Hannibal finished dressing him, buttoning the shirt and smoothing out the vest.

When he seemed satisfied – stepping back and looking him up and down –, Hannibal returned in the bathroom without a look behind, sure that Will would follow.

They climbed out of the first-floor window to find a car parked just below, which Will questioned no more than the clothes because he was past being surprised at the world’s willingness to bend for the cannibal. Hannibal got into the driver seat and Will took shotgun, eyeing Hannibal’s fingers stiff from cold. He’d propose to drive, but for now…

“Where are we going?”

“To our dear Bedelia.” It almost sounded like a toast.

Will sighed and leaned back in his seat. He’d tried, and had not managed to save himself. He had been right: it was completely fine. Now, to kill them all.

 

-

 

They were parked one street away, but they could see the lit house. Will had ended up driving the end of the way, since he remembered it.

“Hannibal.”

The turn of his head: a quiet sound of attention, imperceptible for anyone else.

“I don’t think I’m quite comfortable with killing innocent people.”

“Then stay in the car.”

It wasn’t condescending, more like he was accommodating a quirk of Will’s. But it made Will feel lonely. Now that he was resigned to following Hannibal – now that his survival and freedom depended on him –, the killer truly felt like an anchor, a paddle.

“No, I’ll come. But I think I will not be an… active… participant.” He willed his gaze hard as he stared at Hannibal.

For Hannibal, a simple stretch of lips into a sincere smile; to Will, a wolfish grin. _Yet_ , it said.

 

-

 

Bedelia was asleep. It was easy for Will to slip in her bedroom, take a chair to sit against a wall. And watch. He had to watch, or he would not get used to it.

The lights had not been a mistake. Will thought that she could not sleep without them, now. He doubted her slumber was deep, too.

Hannibal came in with a platter that he put down on the nightstand. He had borrowed a white apron and rolled his sleeves. Will wondered if he too should be more careful, but the idea of being splattered with blood made his heart race.

Hannibal attached Bedelia’s wrists to the bedstead, and her ankles to the rungs at the feet of the bed. Then he stuffed her mouth with a handkerchief previously wetted with a liquid and that’s when she woke.

She seemed in a haze, at first, then her eyes cleared and opened fully, wide; but she was calm, did not struggle. Will knew that feeling. What use was struggling when you were in Hannibal’s claws? He had long stopped. When she looked at him, her quick glare of rage was washed-out. It was also possible that she was ingesting the drug on the handkerchief.

Hannibal finished covering the bed in a plastic wrapping, under her body. Bedelia fainted at the sight of the saw.

 

-

 

She came to immediately after, of course, screaming muffled. No use in that either, but it was a primal response. That was when Will knew Hannibal was pissed at her; knew that he could have injected her with something, an anesthetic.

At some point, Will stepped in to keep her from shaking so much and making the job messier and longer. He could not tell if Hannibal’s hungry look was for him or for Bedelia’s leg.

 

-

 

Bedelia was in the dining room, drugged, barely conscious. Hannibal had dressed her, and that had been when Will had left the room; for some reason, this violation in particular had seemed crude. Will had helped to dress the table and to move her in her chair.

Now, Will finished cutting condiments, meticulous to the task while Hannibal finished preparing the sauce. The kitchen smelled of herbs and meat. The syrup was very red, scarlet with dark swirls, and Will remembered the blood gushing over Hannibal’s hands and exposed forearms, running over them like water. He could not count the number of blood baptisms Hannibal and him had been anointed with anymore. Even after washing it, Hannibal’s skin had a dark tinge. It seemed to Will he could see everywhere blood had touched him, turning him into a red creature. Black in moonlight. _Beautiful_.

He watched the creature, and the creature watched him.

Will was almost sure the sidelong glances were to see if he sliced the pepper correctly, but they lingered, and he knew his own eyes lingered too. The knife suddenly felt heavy, his fingers like unrefined clay, clumsy, ready to break. His gaze was constantly distracted from the cutting board. He kept expecting Hannibal to break the silence like he always did, to maintain a conversation, but he only looked at Will, smiling. It was maddening, but then again, being driven mad and being with Hannibal seemed to go hand in hand.

Will put the knife down carefully. “Hannibal.”

“Yes, Will?” Hannibal was focused on his task. Will’s gaze strayed again.

There was control, mastering, of course. And there was his hands, always his skilled hands, and the memory of his hands and the casual burn of their touch…

His lack of response finally made Hannibal stop, wipe his hands in a napkin and turn to him. He laid a careful hand on Will’s weak shoulder. Will looked up. What Hannibal saw on his face pleased him, because his smile got wider, and still so fond. Will felt about to throw up his own heart.

“You need to say it, Will”, Hannibal pushed.

His tenderness had always been unbearable.

“I want you to kiss me.”

Hannibal’s eyes fluttered close for a second, and in an instant he plunged on Will, hands moving to his neck, his jaw, their lips meeting hurriedly, perfectly. Finally, Will could breathe.

There was no complexity in kissing Hannibal. The complexity had been in the distance between their mouths. Now, there was no “too much” and no “too little”; there was none. No space, no words. Just the press of their lips. Will could almost map the shape of Hannibal’s.

He pushed his body forward, pinning Hannibal to the counter, fisting his shirt. His shoulder hurt but the feeling of Hannibal’s chest against his and his warm, dry hands holding his face, a thumb against the stitches, made him so alive he could almost cry, and instead he kissed with more fervor still.

So many times he had been on the edge of death when Hannibal had held him this tightly, but they were in a kitchen preparing dinner (of Hannibal’s former psychiatrist), making out with teeth biting and tongues brushing. He felt Hannibal’s heat everywhere, their bodies aligned from head to toe, and involuntarily canted his hips. That was when Hannibal drew back. It wasn’t a rejection, and Will felt calm. Hannibal brushed back Will’s hair, eyes hooded, wanting but patient.

“Bedelia is waiting.”

Will nodded shakily. Hannibal gently slithered out of his hold, caressed the side of his face a last time. The sting when he faintly pulled on the stitches was starting to feel more pleasurable than painful. For a moment, he imagined Hannibal’s finger penetrating the wound, and he could bite it with his molars and feel their blood mingle– Hannibal scooped up the pepper rings, arranged them and the sauce in the dressed plates, and took those in the dining room.

Best not to leave him alone.


End file.
